Huawei Technologies boss Ren Zhengfei denies his company’s products are being used by the Chinese government to spy on other countries particularly the United States.
Last October, a U.S. congressional report, citing fears that communists governments might extract corporate secrets using exported telecom products sold to carriers and companies, urged American firms to stop dealings with Huawei and Chinese manufacturer, ZTE Corp.
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Speculations of cyber espionage were further fanned by Ren’s background. He has been linked to the Chinese government because of his membership in the Communist Party in 1978 and his having been an engineer in the People’s Liberation Army before he built Huawei.
Huawei has maintained it has no ties with the Chinese government, but Ren’s previous silence on the matter had heightened speculations otherwise.
Rather than breaking into the U.S. market, Ren said, Huawei will focus on Europe as it targets developing markets.
Eric Xu, the company’s VP also said that Huawei is no longer interested in the U.S. market following the congressional report.
In New Zealand, Huawei won the contract to build Telecom New Zealand’s 4G LTE network last month.
